Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner, the keynote speaker at yesterday's Arts at Dartmouth Awards Ceremony, painted a dismal picture of the current American political scene and envisioned an even worse situation in ten years.
"I want so badly to scare you," Kushner said in a speech titled "Arts in the Current Political Climate." "You must know what a terrible world this is."
Kushner went on to rail against the policies of the "scariest Congress this country has ever elected," which helped account for his negative predictions for the future.
"The present ravaged America will in 10 years seem like a paradise," he said, apparently laying much of the blame on the "mendacious neo-barbarians in Congress."
Kushner predicted a society with no legal guarantees for minorities, no health care, easy access to guns and no federal funding for the arts and humanities.
Kushner, an outspoken gay activist, often incorporates his liberal views in his dramatic works. His most recent play, "Angels in America," won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards.
The seven-hour play, divided into two plays, "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika," deals with AIDS and related themes. The play is currently being made into a movie by celebrated director Robert Altman.
Kushner, speaking at a rapid pace and rarely looking up from his podium, drew intermittent cheers and laughter from the audience, who seemed to appreciate his cynical observations and comments on today's society.
Kushner closed the speech on an uncharacteristically optimistic note.
"The function of art is to keep a utopian horizon visible or at least imaginable," he said.
Prior to the keynote address, awards were presented for excellence in the Drama, Film Studies, Music and Studio Art Departments. Other awards were given for excellence in the Hopkins Center Ensembles.
Pavol Liska '95 received the Benjamin & Edna Ehrlich Prize in the Dramatic Arts. Liska, a Senior Fellow, recently completed his full-length play, "Confessor," which will be produced this term in the Bentley Theater.
The Eleanor Frost Play Competitions Awards were given to three students for their one-act plays. The three winning plays, "Well Wishing," "A Night in Tennessee" and "Produce King of Hub City" were written by Rebecca Gorman '95, Jessica Heyt '95 and Richard Molson '95 respectively.
Owen Gottlieb '95 and Sharyn Steele '95 were the recipients of the Stern Film Studies Achievement Award. Gottlieb recently finished work on a 16-millimeter color synch-sound film as part of his two-term honors project in Film Studies and will attend University of Southern California Film School in the fall.
Marcin Ramocki '95 was one of the winners of the Perspective on Designs Award in Studio Art. Ramocki, who specializes in color and surface display, has received a post-graduate fellowship in Studio Art for the next academic year and his work will be exhibited in the Jaffe-Friede Gallery next spring.
Luis Scheker '95 was one of seven students honored with the Marcus Heiman-Martin R. Rosenthal '56 Achievement Award in the Creative Arts. Scheker has been a pianist for the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble for the last three years and musical director for the student band Skaboodah. He also served as musical director for the popular student production "Godspell" in the Fall term.
About 200 people attended the ceremony and speech held in Spaulding Auditorium.
